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breaking news

With Astros in town, Marlins “can’t take anybody lightly from here on out”

The Houston Astros are not the Washington Nationals and the Colorado Rockies are not the Philadelphia Phillies. But the Marlins won’t take any time to relax — they’d better not — as the Astros and Rockies come to town.

I bring that up because I’m convinced – although players won’t admit it – that the Marlins left South Florida last Monday, high on their series win over the Cubs, with their eyes set firmly on the Philadelphia Phillies, even though their first stop was Washington.
We know what happened – swept by the woeful Nationals. (And let’s give credit to the Nats, too: They’re playing great ball, winners of 8 straight.)

Maybe that was for the best for the Marlins, since it turned out to be a splash of cold water in the face: the fish swept the first-place Phillies, the first time in Marlins history they ever swept a defending World Champion on the road.

It was a giddy clubhouse after yesterday’s win over the Phillies but the best comment came from veteran infielder Wes Helms: “We can’t let this series be the high and then go in and play Houston this week at home let that be a low. We can’t take anybody lightly from here on out.”

Of course, it also hurts to think back on where the fish might be today if they’d at least won their series in Washington, whom they’d beaten 10 straight times going into their series-opener clunker last Tuesday.

“We’re definitely not where we want to be,” outfielder Cody Ross said after yesterday’s in. “We’d obviously rather be in (the Phillies’) situation, being four (games) up but given the circumstances where we were three days ago, we knew we had to come in here and pretty much to this in order to be considered a contender.”

What do you think, Lou and Matt and everyone else out there? Give Cody a reply — Are the Marlins contenders? I think they are. Will they reach the playoffs? I need much more convincing…

This week’s series with the Astros will showcase two of the top-hitting shortstops in the league – Hanley Ramirez and Miguel Tejada. Hanley is batting .348, ahead of Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval. Tejada is seventh with a .317 batting average.

When the Marlins plays the Mets – and Jose Reyes – Hanley seems to take his game up a notch. The Marlins hope he does the same with Tejada and the Astros.

Me? I’m looking forward to seeing where rookie left-fielder Chris Coghlan takes his game. He’s on fire – eight straight multi-hit games and counting. Anyone think he’ll finish the year with a batting average above .300? I do.